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Hope you all had a good Christmas. So I'm looking for some advice on the sequence and extent of a floor repair on the 4a. Car spent all its life in California/Utah and is 90% free from corrosion....except for the front LH footwell, which I've seen on a number of US imports; possibly scuttle drain leak or a damp drivers foot mat? Anyway, I'm going to replace the footwell (have panel), but the bottom 7 or 8cm of the front LH bulkhead and the corner of the inner sill are also corroded. how much to cut back and what sequence? I was thinking minimum cut back and floor last? Any advice much appreciated. Pictures below. The rest of the relevant panels are blasted and completely sound.

Many thanks

David

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Hi David,

One thing on repairs I’v learnt is to remove more than I thought initially, until you are really in fresh (full thickness) material.

Tack-weld in place until happy with the fit, then weld.

More “senior” advice will surely follow:)

Cheers,

Waldi

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David , Happy New Year.

Waldi's advice is the sound basis for the repair challenge. Tackle the vertical wall ( well slightly sloping really ) area first.

This will allow you plenty of "  access "  with no floor in situ. Out with the powerfile to find the clean solid metal around

the join with the sill. Be sure to expose clean metal on the wheel arch side , so that there is no hiding place for rust.

With your fabricated " patch " add  a bit of " flange " to follow the curve on the top of the sill. Make this inboard. If you're

tempted to put this in the wheel arch area  , then there will be more of an area to collect water / mud / and eventually

generally promote more rust in time. The new flange will of course require a few slits , cut with the tin snips , to accommodate

the curve.

From the pictures it looks as though you should be able to retain the full length of the strengthening depression.

Having established the clean 4th side of the floor pan you can clean up the other three sides with the powerfile until

you find clean solid metal. The outside edge should be fine because you have a double thickness metal ( inner sill / floor pan

join ). Whilst you could go for a flat metal "patch " it would have more strength /less flexibility with indentations. If the other side

floor pan is ok you could try and match the pattern ( in reverse ) for your patch repair. I'm not clear how far , towards the back of the car

the rot goes from the picture. Don't make the school boy error of cutting the patch to size and then putting in depressions , wondering why the patch is too small to fit !

The further the rust goes , the more of an incentive there is , to replace the full floorplan. Be aware that the repair panel has a large flange on the outside edge which forms the lower inner quadrant of the sill.

Options here are drill out all the spot welds top and bottom and remove all metal ( original floor plan ) plus spot welds to transmission tunnel and rear heel board , etc. Replace entire floor pan. If you have plenty of time on your hands this will fill the days for you.

The majority of people will use as much of the panel as they need and  weld  ( on the extremities ) on top of what is there.

The old adage … it's your car so it's your decision about the final outcome / result.

Good luck with it. Bob

Edited by bob-menhennett
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At just less than £90 (in the current Moss sale) and because you already have the floor pan it's worth considering buying that whole front panel (not necessarily using all of it), when you think of the time taken to create a decent looking patch from flat sheet (the section around the sill end is quite tricky if you only have hand tools at your disposal), and of course with the whole panel removed you have far greater access for the floor removal and replacement.

Cheers Rob

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23 hours ago, Rob Salisbury said:

At just less than £90 (in the current Moss sale) and because you already have the floor pan it's worth considering buying that whole front panel (not necessarily using all of it), when you think of the time taken to create a decent looking patch from flat sheet (the section around the sill end is quite tricky if you only have hand tools at your disposal), and of course with the whole panel removed you have far greater access for the floor removal and replacement.

Cheers Rob

It's a few years since I ordered this panel from Moss and things may have changed. The panel supplied to me for a TR4A was a TR6 panel with incorrect apertures and it was very poorly pressed. I returned it and repaired the original.

Cheers

Graeme

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